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© Copyright 1996 By
NewHeavenNewEarth
Published By NewHeavenNewEarth
/ nhne@sedona.net
Pole Shift Torpedoed by Author
By David Sunfellow
When John White first published
"Pole Shift" in 1980, his book sent
re-affirming shocks waves through
the earth changes community. Many earth
change believers (including
this reporter) believed White's book "proved" that
Edgar Cayce, and a host of other
psychics, had correctly foreseen a global
catastrophe that would destroy
much of the planet along with major portions of
the human race. White's book
was particularly powerful because it was written
by a man with serious professional
credentials and, perhaps more importantly,
because it seamlessly wed modern
scientific data with contemporary psychics
and ancient myths and prophecies.
While White refused to say in "Pole Shift"
that he was absolutely certain
that a pole shift was coming, he left no doubt that
he thought one might strike
sometime near the year 2000.
Now, however, White has publicly
said that he doesn't believe there is going to
be a pole shift -- at least
the kind of cataclysmic variety envisioned by Cayce,
Gordon-Michael Scallion, and
others. And while "Pole Shift" is still selling
like hot cakes (it is presently
being published by the A.R.E., Edgar Cayce's
organization), the 1995 edition
now contains an epilogue that discusses why a
pole shift WON'T be visiting
planet Earth anytime soon. White also challenged
the themes championed in "Pole
Shift" in another book of his published in
1990, "The Meeting of Science
and Spirit." In that book he writes, "On the
basis of a decade's hindsight,
I think that the possibility of a catastrophic pole
shift at the end of this century
is increasingly unlikely. To be more precise, I
do not think a pole shift will
occur as predicted."
Since then, White has apparently
become even more convinced that a pole
shift won't happen. In an interview
that appears in the current issue of
ATLANTIS RISING (Number 9),
White called the possibility of a
geological pole shift around
the year 2000 "nonsense and fantasy."
Furthermore, he also believes
that there has probably NEVER been a
pole shift, although he doesn't
rule out the possibility that it could occur
someday in the distant future.
White is, however, careful to distinguish the
difference between a magnetic
pole shift and a geological one. While
acknowledging that there have
been at least 181 occasions recognized by
science when the magnetic field
of the Earth has completely collapsed
and re-established itself in
the opposite polarity, White says that these
reversals were never accompanied
by catastrophes. "Or," says White,
"certainly not catastrophes
of the sort predicted by pole shift theorists
and predictors." White also
said that as far as he knows, such magnetic
shifts do not occur on any cyclical
basis, nor are they triggered by
outer-space events.
Why, exactly, does White believe a pole shift won't happen?
First, White says that the precursor
events foreseen by Cayce, and a
host of other psychics, have
not taken place as predicted.
Second, White believes the Piri
Reis Map (a Renaissance map found
by Charles Hapgood in the LIBRARY
OF CONGRESS in 1959) and a
map drawn by Oronteus Finaeus
in 1532 are not accurate maps of an
ice-free Antarctica. Pole-shift
theorists have cited them as evidence
that the continent was free
of thick layers of ice and snow within the
last 12,000 years and that its
current ice-locked condition happened
very quickly (perhaps in hours
or days). Modern subglacial topographic
maps indicate the ancient maps
are not exact renditions of what actually
lies beneath Antarctica's ice,
nor do they account for what the subglacial
topography of Antarctica would
actually look like if massive amounts of
ice and snow were removed and
the land rebounded from the weight
(isostatic rebound): Antarctica
would be raised as much as 3,100 feet in
the interior and 160 feet along
the coasts. Thus, while both of these maps
may have been efforts to guess
at what the land mass of Antarctica looked
like, neither was drawn by someone
who actually saw an ice-free Antarctica.
Some researchers believe that
the maps are based on observations of early
Portuguese sailers who may have
discovered Antarctica before 1513. The
Piri Reis map even contains
comments that strongly suggest it drew at least
part of its inspiration from
early, possibly secret, Portuguese records. If these
maps are, indeed, based on Portuguese
voyages, then the idea that Antarctica
was mapped by ancient, technologically
advanced civilizations (from earth or
elsewhere) is also effectively
discounted.
Third, the discovery of wooly
mammoths that appear to have been instantly
frozen, some with flowers in
their mouths and stomaches, has been one of
the strongest arguments pole
shift theorists have used to support an
instantaneous flipping of the
poles -- or slipping of the earth's crust. White
now believes, as do many others
who have seriously studied this peculiar
phenomenon, that every argument
put forward by pole shift theorists to
explain this phenomenon, have
been effectively refuted by ordinary
explanations.
To name a few:
1. The new science of taphonomy
(the study of the processes an animal
goes through from the time it
starts to die until its remains are finally
embedded in a geological stratum)
demonstrates that mammoths died not
as the result of disastrous
temperature change, but from asphyxia
(i.e., drowning in an icy stream,
suffocating in a landslide, etc.);
2. Mammoth flesh is not so well
preserved as has been claimed, but
rather the flesh had begun to
putrefy BEFORE being frozen in permafrost;
3. Mammoths were adapted to cold
conditions (pole-shift theorists typically
believe they weren't -- they
argue mammoths lived in warmer climates that
were instantly blanketed by
arctic conditions);
4. There is documented evidence
that flowers and other vegetation do not
require dramatic flash-freezes
to be perfectly preserved (more mundane
circumstances have produced
this phenomenon);
5. Radiocarbon dating of frozen
mammoths indicates that they were not all
frozen in a single catastrophic
moment -- rather, their freezings were spread
out over a much longer time
period.
Fourth, while the mechanics of
ice ages are still not fully understood, current
evidence argues against pole
shifts being their triggering mechanism. In "The
Meeting of Science and Spirit,"
White itemizes the arguments for pole-shift
induced ice ages as well as
current research calling these arguments into
question. His conclusion: "Altogether
then, the latest evidence weighs against
pole shifts, although the onset
of deglaciation is [still] unexplained."
Significantly, White does not
rule out pole shifts as a triggering mechanism in
his 1990 book and, in fact,
says that he believes at least one theory of crustal
displacement deserves serious
consideration.
Noting that White is placing
more reliance on scientific evidence than on
psychic clairvoyant prophecies,
ATLANTIS RISING asked him why.
"I'm not a scientist. I'm only
a student of science. But I have enormous
respect for the scientific
method as a way of probing reality and ascertaining
the truth of something. Science
has its limits, and spiritual truths will not be
proven definitely by science.
On the other hand, science does have a lot to say
that can help us to assess the
validity of reported spiritual truths. In a world of
spirituality, there's a strong
tendency for people to cross over the line from
having an open mind to having
a hole in the head."
For the record, John White has
degrees from Dartmouth and Yale, and has
been writing, teaching and lecturing
on diverse New Age subjects since the
1960's. In 1972, he joined with
Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell to found
THE INSTITUTE OF NOETIC SCIENCE.
He is also the author of several
books, including "Pole Shift,"
"Frontiers of Consciousness," "Future
Science," "Kundalini, Evoltion
and Enlightenment," and "The Meeting of
Science and Spirit." Since 1983,
White has also organized and hosted an annual
conference called "TheUFO
Experience" in North Haven, Connecticut.